So after that chance meeting with Richard Hinton on the top floor of a shopping centre car park, I ventured to the HLR Summer Gathering and Picnic at his lovely home in East Hertfordshire, a little concerned that my lookalike Eleven would be frowned upon by Lotus purists, with me not being allowed to escape in one piece at the end of the day.
How wrong could I be!
I was greeted by the Chairman of the HLR (Nigel Halliday) who already knew about my XI and was quite excited to see it, after it had been spotted trying to merge in amongst Ferraris and Lamborghinis at a recent Italian car show held at ‘Villa Scalabrini’, a care home primarily for Italian residents in Shenley, Hertfordshire.
The venue was Richard’s 20-acre field (complete with lake), with an area to sit, food to eat, drink to drink and the usual relief facilities. The whole setup was very well organised with HLR members manning the parking and serving the food.
There were 100+ cars in attendance, mostly classic Lotus, together with other interesting vehicles including a few MG Midgets, and MX5 and a Maserati. A Porsche 718 replica turned up that looked the part.
Lotus wise, there were some standouts for me, most notably the white Eleven S1 brought along by Victor Thomas. Victor is a very interesting chap, and I spoke with him for some time. He had a very good look around my XI, and I learnt that he knew Westfield’s Chris Smith and he had made the XI front clam moulding for Chris from an original Eleven (that may still exist somewhere in the UK). I felt quite honoured that an original Eleven owner would show so much interest in a lookalike.
The other standout car for me was an original 23b that had been ‘rescued’ from the US. It looked superb, and would certainly be on my wish list if I had the ‘wherewithal’.
There was an old Seven Series 3, looking very smart in bare aluminium.
Lotus Cortinas were in abundance. I never knew this, but it looks like they were available from the factory in any colour so long as it was off-white with a green stripe down the side!
Of course many ‘Sevens’ attended, more than a couple of handfuls of the Lotus variety, but outnumbered by the Caterhams, that I have to admit looked very nice and very well finished, if not a little quiet in the exhaust noise department!
To balance the age of cars, there were a few Emiras, Evoras, Elises, Exiges and other models beginning with the letter ‘E’.
Many people showed genuine interest in my XI (even the Caterham boys), and I was made to feel very welcome. I took my 16-year-old along (GCSEs now being complete), who would quite like a S1 Elise (I used to have an S2) as his first car….. one needs to dream!
